
Class 2>T7^l 

Book .H^ 

CopiglitlJ? 



COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT. 



NEW PROOFS 
OF THE SOUL'S EXISTENCE 







BOSTON 

SHERMAN, FRENCH 6- COMPANY 

1914 



.H3 



Copyright, 1914 
Shermak, French (Sr» Company 






NOV 30 1914 



'CI.A387745 



PREFACE 

Some will take offense at the very title of 
this book. The existence of the soul, they will 
say, has been discussed through thousands of 
years from every possible point of view. It is 
folly, then, to claim the discovery of new proofs 
that were hidden from the great masters of 
thought. 

I answer that these new proofs are all rooted 
in the principle demonstrated in Chapter I — 
that all thinking is a relating of cause and ef- 
fect. And whoever reads that chapter care- 
fully will see that this demonstration could not 
have been made until modern science had 
reached its present stage of development. I am 
not posing, then, as a rival to the great masters 
of the past. But I occupy a privileged posi- 
tion whereby an insight can be gained, impos- 
sible in their day. Hence these new proofs of 
the soul's existence. 

All Europe is now plunged in the greatest, 
most murderous war that the world has ever 
known. And in this sudden sinking of our 
civilization into the lowest depths of barbarism, 



PREFACE 

we are simply reaping a harv^est the seeds of 
which were sown more than a century ago. A 
skeptical mania then began which has gradually 
undermined the belief in God and the soul. But 
man must worship; having rejected the true 
God, he grovels in the dust before the God of 
War. And if man is soulless, why should he 
not be hurried — like other animals — to the 
slaughter-house ? 

The issue of my book just now seems, then, 
opportune. For it is night that reveals the 
stars. And in this present night of horrors, 
people will be apt to give heed to proofs that 
God still reigns and souls exist. 

S. S. H. 



CONTENTS 

CHAPTER PAGE 

I The Nature of Thought ... 1 

II The Perfect Cause 28 

III The Unity of Consciousness . . 43 

IV Conflict of Sense and Reason . . 54 

V Freedom 68 

VI Immortality 77 

VII Conclusion 85 




NEW PROOFS OF THE 
SOUL'S EXISTENCE 



CHAPTER I 
THE NATURE OF THOUGHT 

The chief problems of philosophy — and, 
above all, the problem of the soul — can be 
solved only by starting from a clear view of the 
nature of thought as distinguished from feel- 
ing. Hence I begin with an attempt to prove 
the following thesis : The essential function of 
all thinking is to interpret the given in terms 
of cause and effect. 

It will naturally be demanded that, first of 
all, I define the causal relation. Cause, it will 
be said, is a word of many diverse meanings ; 
and it will profit nothing to show that every 
form of thinking involves some dim shade of 
some one among these contrasted meanings. 
But evidently, if my thesis is true, there can be 
no formal definition of causality ; for there is no 
wider genus under which it can be sub-sumed 
as a species with its special differentia. 

But this difficulty is not insuperable. For 
it will be shown as we proceed that there is but 
one perfect type of causality; and that all these 
diverse meanings are but so many phases or de- 



2 THE SOUL'S EXISTENCE 

grees of imperfection evinced as we descend 
from that perfect type. 

SECTION 1. SUBSTANCE AND ATTRIBUTE 

Let us, then, first take thinking in its simplest 
form, i. e., those perceptive judgments which 
connect things and their quahties. What now 
is the relation between the qualities and the 
thing qualified? We all know the old answer 
handed down from Aristotle through the ages. 
The qualities inhere in the thing — stick in 
it, as it were — like pins in a pin-cushion. 
Against this familiar but absurd view, I main- 
tain that the real relation between the thing 
and its attributes is that of cause and effect. 
The thing is the partial cause of its attri- 
butes. 

Note, above all, the significance of the limit- 
ing term — the partial cause. The first maxim 
of modern science is that no finite, sensible thing 
is the complete cause of an effect. The true 
cause of any effect is complex ; many different 
things or agencies are woven together as fac- 
tors in the causal process whence any given 
effect or change results. But modem philoso- 
phy has been strangely blind to this axiom of 
modern science; and this blindness has led to a 
virtual discarding of causation as a vague, am- 
biguous term useless in systematic thinking. 
" Cause," says Martineau, for instance, " ap- 



THE NATURE OF THOUGHT ^ 

pears at one time as a thing or object in space; 
in another as a prior phenomenon ; and again, 
as a definite force identical with neither. In 
assigning the cause of the daily tides, for ex- 
ample, 3^ou may name the moon or the rotation 
of the earth or the gravitation of the related 
masses." He does not see that each of these 
is but a partial cause, a factor in the complex 
process producing the tides. In like manner 
Wundt and Sigwart dispute: the one insisting 
that the cause of every event is some prior 
event, the other that substances also are causes.^ 
All such confusion and wrangling might have 
been avoided by remembering that the substance 
is indeed a cause, but a partial one, a factor in 
the causal complex producing the attribute. 

Note further that the thing or substance, 
though only a partial cause, occupies a privi- 
leged and pre-eminent position. For it is the 
only factor that persists, that operates in one 
and all of the many different processes by which 
its many attributes are severally produced. 

Again, it is the specific factor; the other fac- 
tors are general conditions giving only general 
results. For example, the earth's attraction is 
such a condition determining the weight of 
things in general. But it is the structure of 
the thing itself which determines whether it 
shall be heavy as lead or light as a leaf. So 
1 Sigwart: Logic, II. 564-74. 



4 THE SOUL'S EXISTENCE 

with color: the ether-waves produce all manner 
of colors, but the structure of the thing deter- 
mines its specific color. 

These considerations are enough to prove my 
contention that the relation of substance to its 
attributes is that of a partial cause to many 
effects produced under varying circumstances. 
And yet it is but one half of the proof. The 
other and more important half consists in show- 
ing that only this view explains certain per- 
plexities that have long darkened the concep- 
tion of substance and attributes into a midnight 
of enigma and self-contradiction. 

(1) First of all, consider the well-known 
logical riddle : if from the substance we take 
away the attributes nothing remains ; conversely, 
if from the attributes we take away the sub- 
stance, again we have nothing left ; thus sub- 
stance and attribute taken apart seem to be 
but two nothings. But the error lies in regard- 
ing substance and attribute as two distinct 
things. Rise above this childish view. Inter- 
pret substance and attribute in terms of cause 
and effect. Then you see at once that a cause 
which has no effect is not a cause, and that an 
effect which has no cause is not an effect. 

(2) Another and still graver opposition 
which philosophy has for centuries been vainly 
striving to reconcile is that of identity and di- 
versity. Hegel rightly insisted that difference 



THE NATURE OF THOUGHT 5 

was even more essential to a true concept or 
universal than was mere resemblance.^ But he 
erred fatally in supposing that this union of 
identity and difference was self-contradictory. 
He did not see that all thinking was a relating 
of cause and effect. And that the very essence 
of such a relation was that it at once differen- 
tiated between the cause and its effect, and yet 
united them by the firmest of bonds. 

(3) Another famous opposition is that of 
the One and the Many. Philosophers as wide 
apart as Hegel and Herbart agree that one 
thing with many qualities is a flagrant case of 
self-contradiction. Bergson believes that this 
difficulty can be overcome by rising above mere 
intellect into the cloud-land of his sympathetic 
intuition or " Creative elan." But there is no 
need of these strange devices. Unity and mul- 
tiplicity when interpreted in terms of cause and 
effect are not contradictory, as we have seen ; 
the one thing is the central factor in many dif- 
ferent processes of causation, each of which im- 
parts to that thing a different aspect or quality. 

(4) Still another opposition is that of per- 
manence and change. Hegel would reconcile 
these by abolishing time. Bergson, by confin- 
ing mere intellect to a knowledge of the perma- 
nent, while " a kind of intellectual ausculta- 

2 Bosanquet, Individuality, etc., devotes 50 pages to 
this truth, pp. 31-81. 



6 THE SOUL'S EXISTENCE 

tion,"" ^ reveals the throbbings of incessant 
change or restless becoming. But for such fan- 
cies I would substitute the simple fact that the 
thought of causation necessarily involves both 
permanence and change. The cause is rela- 
tively permanent, the effect relatively change- 
ful. In other words, the two reciprocally 
qualify each other; we know the cause through 
its effects and conversely the effects through 
their causes. 

Thus these four phantoms of self-contradic- 
tion which have so long disquieted the philo- 
sophic world seem to vanish in the light of the 
view here maintained. And this is the other 
half of my proof that the relation of substance 
to its attributes is that of a partial cause to its 
many effects. 

SECTION 2. CONCEPTS 

A threefold difficulty infests the problem of 
concepts or universals. The first two concern 
the double meaning of the concept, its extension 
and intension. The third is the question, 
handed down from the Middle Ages, whether 
concepts really exist, or are but mere names. 
And these three inter-tangle into a hard knot 
which philosophy as yet has failed to untie. 

Let us see, then, whether this knot can be 

3 Bergson: Introduction to Metaphysics, p. 36. 



THE NATURE OF THOUGHT 7 

untied by the aid of our principle that all think- 
ing is a relating of cause and effect. A univer- 
sal, I hope to show, means something more than 
a collection of individuals or a bundle of at- 
tributes or a mere name. Its deepest meaning 
is a process of causation producing uniform re- 
sults. The proof thereof can be given here 
only in outline, but still clearly enough, I trust, 
to be convincing. If any reader should still 
doubt, let him refer to my Philosophy of the 
Future (pp. 9B— 112) where the proof is given 
in greater detail. 

The primitive view of the concept — a view 
that stood unchallenged until a century ago — 
was crude and superficial. It saw in the con- 
cept naught but a collection of resembling ob- 
jects. The extension expressed the objects, the 
intension their resemblance. But a rude shock 
was given to this venerable view by Hegel's in- 
vention of " the concrete universal." To him 
belongs the honor of being the first European 
to see that the old view of the concept neces- 
sarily involved universal self-contradiction. 
To conceive anything was to place it in a col- 
lection of like objects. But instantly the 
counter- thought arose that these objects were, 
in many respects, not like each other. Thus 
every concept becomes a palpable self-contra- 
diction. Or, as that eminent Hegelian, Mc- 
Taggart, puts it : " But everything is, as we 



8 THE SOUL'S EXISTENCE 

have seen, Unlike every other thing. And it is 
also Like every other thing, for in any possible 
group we can, as we have seen, find a common 
quality. Thus under this category everything 
has exactly the same relation to everything 
else. For it is both Like and Unlike every- 
thing else." * 

But though Hegel did well in unveiling the 
contradictoriness of the concept as ordinarily 
construed, his substitute — the concrete univer- 
sal — can hardly be deemed a success. It raises 
far more difficulties than it removes. The true 
solution is that every relation of mere likeness 
or difference, in order to become self-consistent 
and intelligible, must he converted into a causal 
relation by stating upon what the likeness or the 
unlikeness depends. When the vague, inco- 
herent feeling of likeness and unlikeness thus 
evolves into the recognition of a causal relation, 
then only does real thinking begin. In fine, a 
concept, in its deepest meaning, signifies a 
causal process. 

And strangely enough, all the great thinkers 
of every school seem finally driven around to 
this view of the concept. Above all, it was 
Plato's view. The definition of the Platonic 
concept is, according to Xenocrates : " A 
cause serving as the unchanging type of all 
natural things." Hegel also says that " the 
^Commentary on Hegel's Logic, pp. 11^, 113. 



THE NATURE OF THOUGHT 9 

true universal is not merely some common ele- 
ment in all of that kind ; it is their Ground, 
their Substance." Lotze wavers ; at first he 
declares that universals are valid but non- 
existent: we are forced to think them real al- 
though we know that they are not real. But 
in the Metaphysics (§ 88) he swings around to 
the true view and says : " Color as the com- 
mon element of various colors is not a scientific 
idea or concept. Discovery of a process of 
light-waves whose various rates constitute the 
various colors of the spectrum gives the con- 
cept." 

Even such antagonists as Mill and Hamilton 
concur in yielding to this unconscious tide of 
all deep thinking. Hamilton declares that " in 
considering aught as a system or whole, we 
think the parts as held together hy a certain 
force."*' And Mill extols this " as one of the 
best and profoundest passages in all Sir 
William Hamilton's writings."^ (1) Even 
Hobbes, at this point, forgets his Nominalism; 
" these causes of names," he says, " are the 
same with the causes of our conceptions, namely, 
some power of action or affection of the thing 
conceived." ^ (2) Thus all the rival schools 
seem somehow forced to concede that a concept 
means ultimately a causal process. 

5 Mill: Hamilton's Philosophy, II, p. 67. 

6 Mill: Logic, Bk. 1, chap. 5. 



10 THE SOUL'S EXISTENCE 

But there is an oft-urged objection which 
threatens the very existence of the concept. 
Recently it has been put with great skill by 
Bergson ; in fact, it forms the centre and almost 
the circumference of his philosophy. The in- 
herent difficulties of Metaphysic, its antinomies, 
contradictions, etc., he tells us, " arise from 
our professing to reconstruct reality with per- 
cepts whose function it is to make it stationary. 
But there are no means of reconstructing the 
mobility of the real with fixed concepts." "^ 
This view that concepts, being fixed, changeless, 
static, cannot express the changes of reality 
Bergson expands into several volumes. But a 
complete answer to it can be given in a dozen 
lines or so. The causal processes which con- 
cepts express are, indeed, absolutely uniform; 
but that by no means necessitates the invaria- 
bility of the effects. On the contrary, it is this 
very uniformity of the process which brings 
about infinite variation in the results. For ex- 
ample, it is the continuous action of gravity 
which causes the velocity of the falling stone to 
vary in each infinitesimal instant. So the 
process of causation that produces color is one, 
immutable, will persist as long as the cosmos 
lasts. But the colors and hues produced are 
of countless variety, interpenetrate or modify 
each other, vanish and return — are the perfect 
7 Bergson: Introduction to Metaphysics, pp. 67, 69. 



THE NATURE OF THOUGHT 11 

type of " becoming." In fine, concepts mean 
uniform processes, but their uniformity does 
not result in a static, changeless, paralyzed 
world. 

Besides what has already been given there 
are two other lines of proof that the gist of a 
concept is to indicate a causal process. One 
line is derived from the origin of language, the 
other from the origin of science. 

(1) It is a well established principle in 
philology that the majority of verbal roots ex- 
press acts performed in a primitive state of 
society — such as digging, plaiting, weaving, 
binding, etc. Further they are generally co- 
operative acts ; for only thus would they become 
known to all and only thus could their merely 
accidental elements be eliminated. Still more 
significant is Miiller's statement that " the mere 
consciousness of these acts is not enough: only 
when the processes are such that their results 
remain perceptible — for example, in the hole 
dug, in the tree struck down, in the reeds tied 
together as a mat — do men reach conceptual 
thoughts in language." ^ 

Or as another eminent philologist. Noire, has 

said : " The conception of causality subsisting 

between things. Verily this constitutes such a 

simple, plain and convincing means of distin- 

8 Lectures on the Science of Thought; 30. 



12 THE SOUL'S EXISTENCE 

guishing the logos, human reason from animal 
intelligence, it seems inconceivable that this 
manifest and clear boundary-line should not 
long ago have been noted and established as 
such." 9 

Philology, then, confirms my thesis. Every 
word used in human speech has had its origin 
in the effort of primitive man to express those 
causal processes which he perceives in Nature 
or which he himself executes in common with 
his fellows. 

(2) Still more conclusive is the testimony 
presented by man's prolonged effort to classify 
natural things. At a very early period, savage 
man had succeeded in classifying living things 
into their species or lowest kinds. But the 
inorganic things went unclassified. Even at the 
climax of ancient civilization, so great a genius 
as Aristotle could divide them only into these 
four absurd kinds : " the hot and dry, the hot 
and wet, the cold and dry, the cold and wet." 
The reason is obvious. In the organic realm, 
the processes of production were perceptible; 
in the inorganic, they were hidden. 

Furthermore, ancient classification, even of 
the organic, never reached beyond species. 
Until three centuries ago botanists knew of no 
grand divisions in the plant-world except 
" trees, shrubs and herbs." But light dawned 

9 Origin of language, p. 42. 



THE NATURE OF THOUGHT 13 

at last when Gessner discovered that true 
genera could be formed by noting characteris- 
tics drawn from the process of fructification. 
Since then, as Darwin has said, " naturalists in 
their long search for a true or natural system 
of classification " have always been uncon- 
sciously guided, not by mere resemblances, but 
by the principle of inheritance." ^^ But the 
principle of inheritance is but another phrase 
for process of production. Thus the develop- 
ment of science adds another to our proofs that 
a concept means something more than an imag- 
inary collection of resembling objects. In its 
deepest, widest meaning, the concept signifies 
the causal process which produces both the 
individuals and their attributes. 

And under the guidance of this same princi- 
ple, Darwin himself was led to that sublime 
discovery which has revolutionized modern 
thought. 

(3) Finally, this view gives answer to a ques- 
tion that has baffled the ages. Do universals 
really exist or are they only figments of mind.'' 
I answer that if they do not exist, then nothing 
exists. True, we do not perceive the entirety 
of any causal process. We perceive only its 
component factors. The causal bond or force 
that weaves these components into one invari- 
able process is unseen, and therefore has to be 
10 Origin of Species, ch. 14. 



14 THE SOUL'S EXISTENCE 

inferred by thought. Do you object that this 
bond may be only an idle dream, a fiction of the 
mind? That indeed is a difficulty before which 
all philosophy heretofore has stood perplexed 
and powerless. But if I can prove that the 
sole essential function of thinking in all its forms 
is to affirm causation, then plainly to deny 
causation is to make all thinking essentially 
false. In fine, such a denial would logically in- 
volve the complete collapse and extinction of 
thought. And thus I leave the matter for the 
present. 

SECTION III. INDUCTION 

Logicians have long been very much at vari- 
ance concerning the real nature of inductive 
thinking. To avoid their disputes, let us con- 
fine ourselves to historical facts — to a brief 
glance at some of the chief discoveries or induc- 
tions which have created modern science. It 
will thus be shown, I think, that all these great 
inductions have consisted essentially in the un- 
veiling of some hidden or neglected factor in 
the causal processes of Nature. 

(1) Consider the two chief inductions that 
gave birth to modern astronomy, (a) It had 
long been known that the rapid motion of the 
spectator would make stationary objects seem 
to move. But Copernicus revolutionized as- 
tronomy by proving that this simple fact was 



THE NATURE OF THOUGHT 15 

the neglected factor in all previous views of the 
celestial mechanism, (b) Newton's induction 
was still more sublime; for he unveiled a factor 
that had been not merely neglected, but one so 
deeply hidden that no one had dreamed of its 
existence. 

(2) The creation of optical science is an- 
other proof of my thesis. Here the paramount 
factor — refraction — had long been known as 
a strange illusion, a freak of nature that made 
the straight seem bent. But in the seventeenth 
century, Snell began an inductive study of this 
illusive phenomenon. He discovered the mathe- 
matical law governing its seeming irregularities. 
Very soon refraction, so long neglected, was 
seen to be the central factor in optical proc- 
esses. From SnelPs formula Descartes ex- 
plained, in part at least, the splendid mystery 
of the rainbow. Then came Newton with his 
explanation of colors as due to different degrees 
of refrangibility : a new science had been born. 

(3) In acoustics even Newton failed in his 
induction; his calculation of the velocity of 
sound made it much less than it really was. So 
acoustics was at a stand-still for almost a cen- 
tury. But at last La Place showed that here, 
too, there was a neglected factor. By the sud- 
den compression of the air, heat was generated, 
and thus the wave-motion was greatly acceler- 
ated. Due allowance being made for this, the 



16 THE SOUL'S EXISTENCE 

calculated and observed velocities corresponded, 
and acoustics became an inductive science. 

(4) The creation of chemical science is an- 
other proof that induction is an unveiling of 
the essential factors in a causal process. And 
strangely enough, the neglected factor here was 
the most potent and widely diffused of all 
chemical agencies, to wit, the atmosphere. 
Even in the Middle Ages many skillful experi- 
ments came to naught and many brilliant dis- 
coveries were nipped in the bud by the failure 
to take account of the atmosphere or its chief 
constituent. Even in modern times, after oxy- 
gen had been actually discovered, very little at- 
tention was paid to it for more than a century ; 
its place was taken by the absurd fiction of 
phlogiston with its " negative weight." But at 
last Lavoisier brought into full view the long 
neglected factor — the omnipresent oxygen ; 
the mythical phlogiston was forgotten, and 
chemistry became a true science. 

(5) The history of biology is another crucial 
test of my thesis. In the seventeenth century, 
Leuwenhoek with his crude magnifying glasses 
made animalculae visible. Thus the very units 
of life were laid bare to human inspection. 
And yet for almost two hundred years little at- 
tention was paid to this new revelation. A few 
years ago, however, Pasteur and others began 
to seriously study these neglected factors in the 



THE NATURE OF THOUGHT 17 

process of life. The swift result has been an 
almost complete transformation of both biology 
and medicine. One of the most eminent of 
biologists tells us that only as inquiry has 
turned from the highest organisms to study in 
the lowest the process of life in the concrete 
has biology in theory and practice made much 
progress. 

Such, then, is my proof that scientific induc- 
tion is, primarily, a search for the essential 
factors in a causal process. Note further, that 
logicians in treating of induction have been ac- 
customed to select arbitrarily out of the im- 
mensity of scientific research a few special in- 
stances that happen to suit their theories. But 
my proof has been drawn, not from selected 
fragments, but from the whole — from the en- 
tire course of scientific development. Each 
science has been shown to owe its origin and 
growth to the unveiling of some deep-hidden 
factor or factors essential to the perfection of 
that science. 

SECTION IV. DEDUCTION 

The type of deduction is geometry. A geo- 
metric demonstration is the linking together of 
many inductions, each so simple that its validity 
is assured at a glance. When, e. g., a straight 
line is drawn to a point upon another line, you 
recognize that the sum of the two angles thus 



18 THE SOUL'S EXISTENCE 

formed will be equal to two right angles, not 
only in this particular case, but universally. 
For you see that any imaginable change in the 
position or direction of the two lines would 
leave the sum of the two angles unaltered ; what 
was taken from the one would be added to the 
other. 

It is this swift, almost unconscious transition 
from the particular to the universal that forms 
the essence — the very soul and life — of a 
geometric demonstration. The rest is a mere 
task of construction, an ingenious fitting to- 
gether of many inductions until you attain the 
desired result. But without this incessant 
transformation of each particular inference 
into a universal one, your proof would be 
valid only for the one little figure given in the 
diagram. 

Especially the final demonstrations in geome- 
try, dependent as they are for their proof upon 
many preceding ones, are made up of hundreds 
of minute inductions, as an organism is made 
up of living cells. 

Concerning the syllogism little need be said. 
The conclusion is but the abbreviated union of 
two premises both of which are of inductive 
origin. All the really difficult and valuable 
work of syllogistic reasoning lies in the forma- 
tion and verifying of the two premises ; the put- 
ting of them together in the shape of a syllo- 



THE NATURE OF THOUGHT 19 

gism is almost as much a mechanical task as the 
nailing together of two boards. 

But it may be objected that if geometry is 
the t3^pe of deduction, then there is at least one 
form of thinking that does not consist in a re- 
lating of cause and effect. For mathematical 
science deals only with the eternal and im- 
mutable, and therefore can have nothing to do 
with the changes of causality. But that, I 
think, is a very great error. In the concep- 
tion of a right-angled triangle, for instance, 
there is the possibility of an infinite host of 
changes in the length of the two sides. And 
is it not geometry's task to tell exactly what 
change in the length of the hypothenuse will be 
caused by any one of these possible changes in 
the sides .f^ 

Deduction, then, forms no exception to my 
law that all thinking is a relating of cause and 
effect. 

SECTION V. SPACE 

Another proof of my thesis is that it explains 
the perplexities involved in the idea of space. 
For these perplexities vanish when we think of 
space as the nature of thought demands — that 
is, in terms of cause and effect. 

The whole difficulty seems to have focalized 
upon an alleged antagonism between perceptual 
and conceptual space as contradictory of each 



aO THE SOUL'S EXISTENCE 

other. Kant, in his " Critique of Judgment " 
first suggested this opposition ; and others have 
since laid a much greater stress upon it. But it 
is, I think, all a delusion. What has been er- 
roneously regarded as a distinction between 
conceived and perceived space is really a dis- 
tmction between space and the spatial relations 
of things. And the two so far from being an- 
tagonistic or contradictory to each other are 
really related as cause and effect. 

Mark that I do not say that space is the sole 
or entire cause of the spatial relations of things 
such as distance, direction, etc. The cause is 
complex. Unchanging space is one indispens- 
able factor in the production of spatial rela- 
tions ; perceptible things are another. 

Do you object that space is inactive and 
therefore cannot be a factor in causal processes ? 
Lotze especially insisted upon this as his main 
reason for denying the reality of space ; the 
essence of anything, he argued, consists in its 
behavior, what it does ; and since space does 
nothing, it is nothing. But a distinguished 
disciple of Lotze provides me with an all-suffi- 
cient answer to that. He says : " A medium 
or instrument may be perfect just in proportion 
as it is inert, neither increasing nor diminishing, 
nor in any way modifying what is transmitted 
or effected through it." ^^ 
11 Ward: Naturalism and Agnosticism, II, p. 240. 



THE NATURE OF THOUGHT 21 

But there is another perplexity. How do 
we know that space is absolutely continuous, 
indivisible into parts ? We cannot perceive — 
see with our eyes or feel with our fingers — that 
there are no crevices or holes in it. Nor can 
we appeal to common sense. For common sense, 
although more truthful than the academic con- 
ceit of wisdom which scorns it, is yet not infalli- 
ble. The true answer, I think, is this. Para- 
mount among spatial relations are those of 
distance or the separateness of things. But 
what is meant by this separateness of things is 
that there is space between them. If there is 
no space between them they are not separate. 
Therefore it is absurd to think of space itself as 
divisible into parts. For in order that the 
parts should be separate there would have to he 
space between them, and consequently no sepa- 
ration of the parts. Or, to put it more simply : 
if space could be divided, what then would sepa- 
rate the parts.? 

But on the other hand, the spatial relations 
of things are perceptibly divisible. The reason 
is that spatial relations are effects of space and 
things combined ; and as thus partially produced 
by things they derive from them their character- 
istic of divisibility. But philosophers have 
transferred this divisibility to space itself, to 
which it cannot possibly belong. 

Again, Kant presents it as one of the main 



22 THE SOUL'S EXISTENCE 

difficulties in the space question that space and 
spatial properties of things although so closely 
united are yet very different. How could it be 
otherwise? For space, as we have now seen, is 
related to these spatial properties as a partial 
cause to its effects. And the crowning mark of 
every causal relation is that it at once differ- 
entiates the cause from the effect and yet unites 
them by the firmest of all bonds. 

There is no room here to discuss some minor 
difficulties, but enough has been said, I think, to 
show that to think clearly and consistently 
about spatial relations, we must think of them 
as effects conjointly caused by space and 
things. 

SECTION VI. TIME 

The time-problem furnishes another proof 
that thinking is, fundamentally, a relating of 
cause and effect. It will be shown that time is 
not a mere sum of parts or so-called periods of 
time. On the contrary, time is a partial cause, 
the periods are its effects. And it is the failure 
to thus distinguish between the cause and its 
effects — between time and temporal relations 
— that has given rise to the enigmas and seem- 
ing contradictions that have so perplexed 
philosophy. 

(1) Consider the chief perplexity of all, that 
concerning past, present and future. The 



THE NATURE OF THOUGHT 23 

present, it is said, has no duration; make it as 
short as you can, it is still capable of being 
divided into a before and after — a past and a 
future ; the present is but the plane which with- 
out thickness separates the other two. So far 
as duration is concerned, the present is zero; 
but the past has ceased to exist and the future 
is not yet. Time, therefore, is but the sum of 
three zeros or non-existents. 

I answer that time is one and indivisible. 
The proof thereof, like the proof of the indi- 
visibility of space, lies in the simple question: 
If time can be divided into parts, what is it that 
separates the parts .f^ Certainly the division 
could not be either space or things. Imagine 
two parts of time, one on one side, the other on 
the other side of a spatial point or line! Nor 
could the division be another part of time; for 
then there would be no separation, but con- 
tinuous, indivisible duration. 

(2) But are temporal relations, then, min- 
utes, days, years, etc., merely subjective, — fic- 
tions of the mind? By no means. Temporal 
relations are the products of enduring things 
conjoined with eternal, indivisible time. The 
relations or periods are plainly given in immedi- 
ate experience. So are the enduring things. 
Time as one, limitless, indivisible, is indeed an 
inference; but in thus inferring, thought adds 
nothing merely subjective or illusory. It sim- 



24 THE SOUL'S EXISTENCE 

ply interprets the given in terms of cause and 
effect. 

(3) But it is impossible, you urge, that two 
factors so different as time and material things 
should co-operate in the same causal process. 
Precisely the same objection might be urged 
against my theory of space ; but for brevity's 
sake, I have deferred noticing it until now. 
And I now answer that this parallelistic as- 
sumption is sheer nonsense. It is the very es- 
sence of all causal processes that factors of the 
utmost diversity should combine in one complex 
interaction. And the greater the diversity, the 
vaster the results achieved. Even the parallel- 
ist admits that the factors may differ in quan- 
tity. Why not, then, in quality.'^ 

(4) A more plausible objection may be urged 
that my theory of time leaves it vague and unde- 
fined, a sort of unknowable cause, after the 
style of the Kantian " thing in itself." But 
causes, as we have seen, can be known only 
through their effects ; and conversely, effects 
through their causes. Hence time is the best 
known of all objects ; for it is linked with a 
vaster range of effects. Space is a cause only 
within the physical realm; time in both the 
physical and psychic realms. Furthermore, 
time can be proved to be indivisible and infinite. 
Surely, then, it is very far from being un- 
knowable. 



THE NATURE OF THOUGHT 25 

(5) But what is the proof, it may be asked, 
of time's infinitude? I answer, if time is finite 
it must be limited by something. But nothing 
can exist without time to exist in. Therefore 
whatever puts an end to time would put an end 
to itself, and so there would be no limit. 

(6) Another objection to time's reality is its 
unpicturability. " As has often been pointed 
out, all our representations of time are images 
borrowed from space, and all alike contain con- 
tradictions of the time idea. We think of it 
as an endless straight line, but the conception 
fails to fit ; for the points of such a line co-exist, 
while of the time-line only the present point 
exists." Recently, Bergson has made this an- 
cient dilemma the corner-stone of a new philoso- 
phy just now commanding much attention. 
Time as conceived by the mere intellect, he 
argues, is virtually identical with space. I 
answer that time and space do indeed agree in 
this, that they both are tmpic titrable. We can 
picture or form a memory-image only of what 
has been perceived. Now, neither space nor 
time are perceived, but thought infers them 
from the spatial and temporal relations that are 
perceived. But, I repeat, in thus inferring, 
thought adds nothing illusory: it simply inter- 
prets the given in terms of cause and effect. 
And thus it discovers, without the aid of any 
intuition, that pure space and pure time must 



26 THE SOUL'S EXISTENCE 

be essentially different. For since the effects, 
e. g., distances and hours, are manifestly dif- 
ferent, their causes, space and time, must be 
essentially different. In fine, the brilliant 
imagination of Bergson has over-reached itself. 
No wealth of metaphors will enable him to pic- 
ture what is manifestly unpicturable. 

(7) But there still remains one possible ob- 
jection of great importance. It may be urged 
that throughout the chapter I have miscon- 
strued the nature of causation, that it really 
means nothing more than uniform sequence. 
But against that criticism the present section 
provides an impregnable defense. For it shows 
that sequence, so far from being a substitute 
for causation, is itself absolutely/ inexplicable 
unless it is interpreted in terms of cause and 
effect. 

We have now examined all the grand divisions 
of thinking — perceptive judgment, concep- 
tion, induction, deduction, affirmation of space 
and of time. And we have found them all re- 
ducible to one essential function, to wit, the 
interpretation of the given in terms of cause 
and effect. 

(1) Thus Hume's famous problem which, ac- 
cording to Hoffding, " Rant failed to solve and 
is indeed insoluble," has finally been solved. 
Hume asserted that causation was only a regu- 



THE NATURE OF THOUGHT 27 

lar succession of phenomena in space and time. 
But I have proved that each word in his defini- 
tion is, in its essence, a declaration of causality. 
Eliminate causation and each word would lose 
all its meaning. Thus in the very act of deny- 
ing causality, Hume is forced to affirm it over 
and over again. 

(2) My argument is, in fact, a reductio ad 
absurdum in the completest form imaginable. 
The geometer proves his theorem by showing 
that its denial would involve the denial of some 
universally accepted principle. My theorem is 
proved by showing that its denial would invali- 
date all judgments, efface all distinctions, in 
fine, w^ould involve the utter extinction of 
thought. 

(3) And even if you are willing to accept this 
utter invalidity of all thinking, there is still an 
answer for you. For if all our judgments are 
false, then this particular judgment, to wit, 
that all our judgments are false, must be as 
false as all the rest. 



CHAPTER II 
THE PERFECT CAUSE 

SECTION I. THE AMBIGUITY OF CAUSATION 

As promised at the beginning of Chapter I, 
we have now to consider the ambiguities that 
seem to infest the term " cause " as commonly 
used. And first of all, let us remember, what is 
so often forgotten, that no effect is the product 
solely of a single cause, but of a complex of 
many co-operating causes. Each one of these 
factors, then, is but an incomplete or partial 
cause. Even the sum of them all would not be 
a complete cause, for their conjunction and 
co-operation would still have to be accounted 
for. 

It is folly, then, to conceive the imperfect 
and partial as if they were complete causes, and 
then bemoan the ambiguity of causation. To 
comprehend any concept aright we must con- 
ceive it in its perfected type. If it appears 
also in imperfect forms, we can descend to these 
by pointing out the defects which distinguish 
them from the perfect type. But the course 

can never be reversed. The deficiencies of the 

28 



THE PERFECT CAUSE 29 

lower will give no insight into the perfection of 
the higher. A river can rise no higher than 
its source. There are, then, not different kinds 
but only different degrees of perfection i/n 
causality. At the summit of the scale we find 
the perfect type, the complete, self-sufficient 
Cause, the chief characteristics of which are 
to be described and proved in this chapter. 
Thence there is a continuous declension into 
lower degrees or imperfect types. The highest 
of these known to us is the causality of the 
human spirit, akin to that of God, but limited 
to action upon its own body ; its freedom ham- 
pered by the instincts of the flesh; its ration- 
ality restricted by the limitations of sense. 
Next below comes the organic world, wherein 
causality has shrunk to a self-determination 
which Hegel and others have confounded with 
true human freedom, and where rationality has 
faded away into a merely automatic association 
of similarities. Then comes the inorganic 
world, ruled by uniform but inscrutable forces. 
In fine, the present philosophic bewilderment 
is largely due to beginning the study of caus- 
ation at the wrong end. How can we expect 
to learn the real nature of anything, if we con- 
fine our study of it to its imperfections, its most 
imperfect and obscurest types? More than 
two thousand years ago, Aristotle saw the folly 
of such a method as that. He said : " By the 



30 THE SOUL'S EXISTENCE 

concept of the straight we discover both the 
straight and the crooked ; the rule is the test of 
both, while the crooked is not a test either of 
itself or the straight." That precisely out- 
lines the method I shall follow. To know the 
human soul we must start from some insight 
into the nature of a Perfect Cause. Nothing 
can be comprehended if it is conceived only in 
its most imperfect types. The crooked is not 
a test either of itself or the straight. 

SECTION II. INFINITUDE 

We have proved that thought cannot deny 
the reality of causation without destroying it- 
self. The question now before us is simply 
this : What are the main characteristics of a 
perfect or complete and self-sufficient cause? I 
answer, first, that one essential of such a cause 
is infinitude. For whatever is finite is limited by 
something else, and therefore must be, to that 
extent, an effect ; it may also be a partial cause 
or factor in a causal process, but never a com- 
plete, self-sufficient cause. Now this proof, 
though given in a few words, seems clear and 
incontrovertable. But there are objections to 
be met. 

First, Sir William Hamilton and others in- 
sist that " The Infinite " is a merely negative 
and therefore an inconceivable and unknowable 
notion. And that is true enough so far as 



THE PERFECT CAUSE 31 

" The Infinite " is concerned ; nothing could be 
more utterly blank and void than that. But 
substitute for this senseless abstraction the no- 
tion of The Infinite Cause, and how great is the 
change! For causality is not abstract, but 
concrete and positive — the one reality which 
all true thinking is bent upon discovering. 
And the adjective " infinite " added to it, in- 
stead of negating it, expands it ; makes it more 
glorious and sublime. 

The second objection, as McTaggart puts 
it, is : " If God is omnipotent, why could He 
not attain his ends without the use of any inter- 
vening means "^ " ^ 

I answer that so far as God himself was con- 
cerned, He had no need of these intermediaries. 
For the infinite has need of nothing. But one 
of his ends manifestly was the creation of finite 
beings able to think and to advance in knowl- 
edge. But such knowledge would be impossible 
in a universe where there were no uniform proc- 
esses, no means of linking together the innumer- 
able parts into a consistent whole. 

SECTION III. UNITY 

The second elemental feature of a complete 
or self-sufficient cause is Unity. We perceive 
in Nature a vast variety of causal processes 

'^Some Dogmas of Religion, p. 201. 



32 THE SOUL'S EXISTENCE 

each containing many factors. But the greater 
the multiplicity of these co-operating factors, 
the greater the demand for some self-sufficient 
cause binding the many factors into one process, 
and all processes into one cosmic system. And 
here we are at once confronted by that age-long 
dispute concerning " The One and the Many," 
which Prof. Ward avers is to be the problem of 
the present century. But what was said, in the 
previous section, concerning " The Infinite " 
applies here also. " The One and the Many " 
interpreted as the nature of thought demands 
— in terms of cause and effect — becomes the 
clear, consistent conception, One Cause of 
Many Effects. Before that view the old per- 
plexities vanish. For instance, Ward says that 
" to the One so transcendently different from 
all that we know, none of our concepts are ap- 
plicable." On the contrary, the supreme con- 
cept which, dome-like, over-arches all human 
thinking, namely, that of the Perfect Cause, is 
the concept which clearly and fully expresses 
the meaning of " The One," properly under- 
stood. 

Or again, Hoffding argues that " our con- 
cept of cause is a concept of plurality of condi- 
tions, so that a cause cannot be an absolute 
unity." But that annuls all causality by re- 
ducing it to an endless series of effects which 



THE PERFECT CAUSE 33 

have no cause. Indeed, HofFding admits this: 
both in his " History of Philosophy " and his 
" Philosophy of Religion " he declares that 
" we shall never be able to solve Hume's problem 
as to the validity of the principle of causation." 

And this efFacement of causality is also the 
tap-root of Hegelianism. Bradley, e. g., ar- 
gues at great length that all phases of finite 
being are false appearances, because they in- 
volve the self-contradiction of unity and diver- 
sity. But when this unity and diversity is 
interpreted causally — that is, as one cause of 
many effects — the contradiction vanishes. 
For the essence of the causal relation is to dif- 
ferentiate and at the same time unite by the 
firmest of bonds. 

The causal processes of Nature are complexes 
of many factors. And each one of these fac- 
tors is but an imperfect cause performing a task 
that by itself is absolutely inexplicable. Even 
Hoffding concedes that " strictly speaking, not 
a single event has been entirely explained." 
And this invariable co-operation of countless 
myriads of unconscious factors can never be 
made intelligible until we rise to the conception 
of that One Perfect Cause that planned, es- 
tablished and maintains it all. 

Such then is the simple proof of unity: 
(1) Without a perfect or complete cause there 



34 THE SOUL'S EXISTENCE 

would be no causation at all ; but that is impos- 
sible. (£) To split up this one, perfect cause 
into many imperfect ones, is to destroy it. 

From the earliest ages, all unspoiled intelli- 
gence has had a glimpse of this great truth. 
Thousands of years ago, the Egyptians pro- 
claimed it in their hymn to Amon-Ra : " The 
one, Maker of all that is; the only One, the 
Maker of Existence." 

SECTION IV. FREEDOM AND RATIONALITY 

The third characteristic of a perfect or self- 
sufficient cause is freedom. That, of course, is 
tautological. Still it must not be forgotten; 
for it will prove of great value to us when we 
come to treat of human freedom. 

The fourth characteristic is rationality. My 
proof here consists largely in rectifying the old 
argument from design. The fault of the old 
argument was that it attempted too much. 
From the order and conformity to aims ex- 
hibited in the world, it sought to prove the 
existence of an omnipotent God. But Kant 
found it very easy to show that " this argument 
is utterly insufficient for the task before us — a 
demonstration of the existence of an all-suffi- 
cient being." ^ My course, however, has been 
very different. First it was proved that causa- 

2 Critique of Pure Reason, pp. 466, 467. 



THE PERFECT CAUSE 35 

tion was real, and that this involved the reality 
of a perfect or complete cause — not an infinite 
regress of incomplete causes. Then it was 
shown that this perfect cause must be infinite 
and one. And now I seek to show from the 
order and harmony of Nature that this cause 
must also be rational. The conclusion thus 
narrowed down to this special point becomes 
almost a truism: the objections which dis- 
credited the old argument lose all their force. 

But it may be said that evolutionary science 
contradicts my view. Not a perfect cause, infi- 
nite, one and rational, but Natural Selection 
has built up the universe. I answer that the 
theory of evolution, instead of contradicting 
my view, illumines and corroborates it. For it 
reveals the methods, the intermediate agencies 
employed by the Infinite Cause in the develop- 
ment of the universe. Remember that Natural 
Selection was never considered by Darwin to 
be the sole factor in evolution. As that high 
authority, Yves Delage, declares : " Darwin's 
successors exaggerated (as scientists are apt to 
exaggerate every new theory) the role played 
by selection." ^ This exaggeration is much to 
be deplored. It has imparted a sinister aspect 
to the theory of evolution. It has made it look 
as if cruelty, pain and death were the only 

3 Delage and Goldsmith : Theories of Evolution, pp. 
60, 61. 



86 THE SOUL'S EXISTENCE 

actors in the glorious drama of the world's 
development. 

Conversely, my doctrine illumines the theory 
of evolution. Recall, for instance, Spencer's 
splendid attempt to construct a philosophy of 
the evolutionary process. He finds that the 
process has three essential characteristics: (1) 
Integration, (2) Differentiation and (3) a de- 
termination which presupposes a definite har- 
mony between (1) and (2). But Hoffding, 
although in sympathy with Spencer, points out 
that proof of this third characteristic is lack- 
ing. " It is not a mere accident," he says, 
" that Spencer was unable to establish this prin- 
ciple. It is impossible to furnish any guaran- 
tee for the harmony of Integration and Differ- 
entiation. . . . Spencer therefore was unable 
to furnish a proof of harmonious evolution." 

But this harmony for which both Spencer 
and Hoffding sought in vain I have certainly 
discovered. For, as I have already shown, the 
essence of every causal process is to, at once, 
differentiate cause from effect and yet integrate 
or unite them by the firmest of bonds. 

SECTION V. SELF-LIMITATION 

The supreme characteristic of a perfect or 
self-sufficient cause is love or self-limitation for 
the sake of others. 



THE PERFECT CAUSE 37 

Whatever acts only to supply some want or 
need of its own cannot be a perfect or self- 
sufficient cause. For that which was lacking 
or needed would be an alien element and the 
ultimate cause of the action. But an infinite 
being has need of nothing; therefore, if it acts 
at all, causes any change or effect, it must act 
for the sake of others. The failure to see this 
plain, simple and yet supremely significant 
truth was the fatal error in Spinoza's philoso- 
phy. He denied the existence of any final 
causes, any plan or purpose in the divine activ- 
ity ; " for, if God acts for an end, it must needs 
be that God desires something which he lacks, 
and if so, de facto is imperfect." And through 
this failure, Spinoza's God dwindled into mere 
substance, without intelligence, will or person- 
ality of any kind. 

But leaving these old philosophies to rest 
quietly in their sepulchres, let us go on to more 
vital questions. And first of all: How is it 
possible to think of God as thus limiting Him- 
self without annulling His infinitude? My an- 
swer is, by thinking of Him, not in terms of 
space, but in terms of causality. Man is a lit- 
tle creature, but he does not diminish himself 
by deeds of self-limitation or sacrifice for thp 
sake of others. Nor does self-sacrifice impair, 
but rather ennobles even the infinitude of God. 



38 THE SOUL'S EXISTENCE 

But these are only preliminaries. Let us 
hasten to the fundamental question — the one 
great perplexity that has wrought more havoc 
in human thought and life than all others com- 
bined — the problem of evil. If God loves 
mankind, why does he permit so much evil to 
exist in the world? The drift of recent thought 
seems to be towards solving this by assuming 
that God is finite, limited in power. Thus Dr. 
Rashdall, who has grown famous as an ex- 
pounder of this theory of God's finiteness, says : 
" That evil is a means to the greatest attain- 
able good is a proposition which is only main- 
tainable upon the hypothesis that there is in 
the ultimate nature of things — that is to say, 
in the ultimate nature of God — an inherent 
reason why greater good should not be attain- 
able. But the dilemma forces itself upon us 
that the explanation must be sought either in 
such a moral limitation (a defect of goodness) 
or in some other kind which may be best de- 
scribed as a limitation of Power." * And he 
adopts the last hypothesis, " the union in one 
and the same Being of absolute Goodness with 
limited Power." ^ 

Now it seems to me that the true key to the 
problem can be expressed by interpolating three 
words between the first two in that quotation. 

4 Theory of Good arid Evil, II, pp. 287, 288. 

5 Ibid, II, p. 341. 



THE PERFECT CAUSE 39 

I would make it read that, not evil, but the 
possibility of evil is a means to the greatest 
attainable good. The change is verbally slight, 
but it is of vast significance. To say that evil 
is a means to the greatest good is to extirpate 
morality. It makes the vilest wretch as true 
a servant of God as the saint. But to say 
that the possibility of evil is a means to the 
greatest good is little more than a truism. For 
the very essence of moral action lies in the fact 
that it is possible and even easier to do the 
opposite or wrongful act. Doubtless, God 
could have made it impossible for man, as He 
has made it impossible for animals, flowers, 
stones, etc., to do wrong. But to have done 
so would not show any increase of power on 
his part. On the contrary, it would prove a 
defect in his goodness ; in fact, it would be, so 
far as finite beings are concerned, an abolition 
of all goodness in the ethical sense of the term. 
Note further that Rashdall is an eager de- 
terminist, devoting many pages to exploiting 
that doctrine. Now, the determinist point of 
view relieves man of all real responsibility for 
his wrong-doing and thrusts it back finally 
upon his Maker; and thus it becomes very easy 
to show that the great flood of evil over-spread- 
ing the earth proves God's finiteness both in 
goodness and in power. But this determinist's 
view will be further considered when we come to 



40 THE SOUL'S EXISTENCE 

our main theme — the proof of the soul's exist- 
ence. For the present it is enough to see that 
a doctrine can hardly be true which leads to 
two such monster paradoxes as the denial of 
man's responsibility and God's infinitude. 

My discussion of the problem of evil has nec- 
essarily been brief; too much so, perhaps, to 
be altogether satisfactory. But it has been 
made plain, I think, that the perplexity of this 
problem is largely due to the attempt to show 
that evil is but a means to the good. Instead 
of that I have shown that the mere possibility 
of evil is not itself an evil. On the contrary, 
it is freedom — God's noblest gift to man, one 
bringing us into such close kinship with him 
that we may rightly be called his children. Do 
you say that He might have endowed us with 
freedom and yet prevented all wrong-doing — 
that is, made evil at once possible and impos- 
sible.^ McTaggart does indeed urge that om- 
nipotence could defy the law of contradiction. 
But such a saying is but a series of sounds abso- 
lutely bereft of meaning. 

SECTION VI. THE EXISTENCE OF GOD 

In these two chapters we have finally reached 
a full demonstration of God's existence. Note, 
however, that this proof is in no wise the fa- 
mous " ontological argument " which Kant is 
said to have demolished. Really it had been 



THE PERFECT CAUSE 41 

demolished nearly five hundred years before 
Kant's day, by St. Thomas Aquinas, who re- 
jected it on the ground that it improperly 
passed from the ideal to the real order. So 
did the great majority of the Scholastics; and 
we are told that the Neo-Scholastics of to-day 
also " regard the ontological proof as worth- 
less." But this proof, rejected by the Mid- 
dle Ages, Descartes restored in a still more 
irrational form. And even after Kant had de- 
molished it again, Hegel revived it once more. 
But Hegel's God or Absolute is merely the 
" Totality " of the existent, so that his on- 
tological proof seems to reduce itself to the 
tautology that whatever exists exists. 

But my demonstration is the polar opposite 
of all this. It does not rest upon the curious 
assumption that because we have the idea of 
a perfect being, therefore such a being must 
exist. But first it was proved inductively, by 
a study of every form of thought, that the 
sole essential function of all thinking was to 
affirm causation — that is, to interpret the 
given in terms of cause and effect. If causa- 
tion, then, is not real, all thinking must be 
false. Therefore it is impossible for thought 
to deny the reality of causation ; for in the very 
attempt to do so, it destroys itself. Our sec- 
ond step was to show that there must be a 
perfect or self-sufficient cause, for to deny that 



42 THE SOUL'S EXISTENCE 

was to virtually cancel causality by reducing 
it to an endless regress of effects which have 
no real cause. The existence of a perfect self- 
sufficient cause having been proved, it was 
shown that such a being must have the at- 
tributes of infinitude, oneness, rationality and 
love. And this being, thus proved to be ac- 
tually existent and endowed with these at- 
tributes, is the theistic God. 



CHAPTER III 
THE UNITY OF CONSCIOUSNESS 

SECTION I. THE IDEALISTIC PSEUDO-PROOF 

So far we have been necessarily occupied in 
pioneer work ; for the pathway to rational be- 
lief in the soul is beset by many obstacles. One 
great difficulty that has hindered many from 
recognizing their own souls is that we are all 
more or less slaves of our senses. We are so 
accustomed to perceiving things in their spatial 
relations — shape, size, position, etc. — that 
we demand that souls should exhibit themselves 
in such relations. Even the immortal Descartes 
searched in the brain for the place where the 
soul was located. And Kant rejected the soul 
outright, because it did not appear as a sub- 
stance. 

But we have now seen that the causal cate- 
gory is the ultimate all-embracing one to which 
all the minor categories must be subordinated. 
Therefore, to comprehend the spiritual we must 
interpret it in terms of cause and effect. The 
moment we try to describe it in spatial terms 
— location, shape, substance, etc. — we are lost 

babes in the wood. 

43 



44 THE SOUL'S EXISTENCE 

It may be well to mention another method 
of obscuring the soul's reality, much in vogue 
even among the staunch, orthodox philosophers 
of the Scottish school of common sense and 
realism. The stream or series of conscious 
states, they tell us, is manifest; but the soul 
itself is merely suggested. Thus Reid says: 
Our sensations and thoughts do also suggest 
the notion of a mind and the belief of its ex- 
istence. Dugald Stewart also declares the 
soul's existence a mere suggestion.^ Sir Wil- 
liam Hamilton says : " There is only possible 
a deduced, relative and secondary knowledge of 
self." Dr. Wayland is still more explicit: 
" All that we are able to affirm of it (the mind) 
is something which perceives, reflects and wills ; 
but what that something is, we know not." 

All that sounds very much like a surrender 
to the enemy of souls. Those who were re- 
garded as staunch champions of spiritualism 
lay down their arms and consign souls to the 
dark lists of the Unknowable. 

And the defection was entirely needless. 
For from what we have proved to be the funda- 
mental law of all thinking is derived the evi- 
dent corollary, that causes cannot he known 
apart from their effects, and conversely, effects 
cannot be known apart from their causes. To 
say, then, as the writers quoted do, that we 
1 Porter: Intellectual Science, pp. 69, 70. 



UNITY OF CONSCIOUSNESS 45 

know the soul only through its activities is not 
an altogether false assertion. But it is only a 
half-truth and therefore a fatally one-sided, 
mutilated and misleading view. For it keeps 
out of sight the complementary truth that our 
psychic activities are also unknowable apart 
from the unitary, abiding self that produces 
them. And no other falsehoods are quite so 
deceptive as those that tell one-half of the 
truth, and forget to tell the other half. 

But what has done more than all else to 
undermine belief in God and the soul is the 
pseudo-proof offered by idealism. It needs but 
a glance, for it is very simple. It consists in 
assuming that the human body, like all other 
material things, is an illusion; but I certainly 
exist, therefore I am a soul. In fact, the 
origin and the prestige of idealism, both in 
ancient India and in modern Europe, are due 
mainly to this very cheap and easy proof which 
is offered for the existence of God and the 
human soul. 

But idealism has failed ignominiously to keep 
the promise upon which its prestige rested. 
Kant, for instance, boasted that he had " de- 
stroyed knowledge in order to make room for 
faith." But faith, if it is to be any more than 
driveling superstition, must be " according to 
knowledge " ; and so Kant, in destroying knowl- 



46 THE SOUL'S EXISTENCE 

edge, destroyed true faith. And Hegel's ad- 
mirers now-a-days will hardly dispute that his 
" Absolute " is but a travesty upon the theistic 
conception of God. McTaggart admits it 
openly and joyously. Calkins says : " It must 
be admitted he nowhere outlines the argument 
(for the individuality of God). To the pres- 
ent writer this neglect seems the greatest and 
most inexplicable defect of Hegel's logic." ^ 
And concerning the human soul Hegel himself 
says : " The tinith is that there is only one 
reason, one mind, and that the mind as finite 
has no existence." 

Let us briefly consider, then, this idealism 
which promises so much and performs so little. 
It is based, I think, upon two fundamental er- 
rors. The first error is its claim that we have 
immediate knowledge only of our sensations and 
not of objects perceived. But that seems to me 
the most obvious and inexcusable of all fallacies. 
To know anything we must know some, at least, 
of its attributes. What, then, are the at- 
tributes by which one sensation is discriminated 
from another .f^ Is it not evident that they are 
attributes not of the sensations themselves, but 
of the objects perceived? Is the sensation of 
a round object itself circular .f* Is the sensa- 
tion of a mountain any taller than the sensa- 
tion of an ant-hill .f' Is the sensation of a red 

2 Persistent Problems of Philosophy, p. 380. 



UNITY OF CONSCIOUSNESS 47 

object, itself painted red? Plainly the sensa- 
tions, insofar as psychical, have no discernible 
attributes of their own by which they can be 
known. 

For more than a quarter of a century I have 
been insisting upon this patent truth ; ^ and 
in that time I have found but two writers of 
note coinciding with me. Brentano says : 
" We find no contrasts between presentations 
except those of the objects to which presenta- 
tions refer." And recently that well-known 
idealist, Joachim, has written a paper in which 
he argues at great length that no mind can 
know its own psychical processes. " We are 
in fact," he says, " committed to an infinite pur- 
suit of that which, by the very terms of its 
conception, cannot be caught or apprehended 
and refuses to stand over against us as an 
object of our awareness. At every step of our 
pursuit, the ' psychical process ' — the process 
of apprehending — eludes us and leaves us in 
possession of an object of apprehension." * 
But curiously enough, he does not seem to see 
that this view annihilates idealism. For the 
gist of idealism is that the mind knows only its 
own psychic processes and therefore that noth- 
ing else can be known to really exist. 

The second idealistic error is a false view 

3 Journal of Speculative Philosophy, Oct. 1886. 
^Mind, N. S., Vol. XVIII, p. 70. 



48 THE SOUL'S EXISTENCE 

of illusions. It regards them as the product 
of certain tendencies inherent in the constitu- 
tion of human thought. Kant found as many 
as fourteen of these constitutional tendencies 
aU leading to false appearances. But mani- 
festly false appearances spring, not from the 
constitution of thought, but from the lack of 
thought and too much trust in mere sense. An 
illusion is simply the ascription of a given ef- 
fect to a wrong cause. It is the mission of 
thought not to produce but to dispell illusions. 
Once, sunset, e.g., was deemed to be caused by 
the sun's motions ; hard thinking revealed the 
true cause. Kant compared himself with Co- 
pernicus. In fact, they were antipodes in think- 
ing. If Copernicus had explained sunrise as 
due to one of the fourteen Kantian a-priorities 
— false but valid for all — mankind would still 
be back in the Dark Ages. 

And Hegel carried the Kantian irrationalism 
a notch higher. For him everything was not 
merely phenomenal, but also self-contradictory. 
Nevertheless, one ought to look kindly upon 
idealism. It has been, in philosophy, very much 
like what " make-believe " is in child-life. No 
one scorns the little girl for watching over her 
doll so tenderly ; she is developing her imagina- 
tion and the holy instinct of motherhood. Just 
so the idealists' paradoxes must not be taken 
too seriously or judged too harshly; they be- 



UNITY OF CONSCIOUSNESS 49 

gan in an instinctive craving for the knowledge 
of God and the soul. Their fault is that they 
have not achieved their purpose. They have 
helped to destroy what they promised to pro- 
mote. 

SECTION II. LOTZE'S ARGUMENT 

Among the few recent idealists who have de- 
fended the belief in souls, Lotze stands fore- 
most. He presents three proofs commonly ad- 
duced for that belief. The first, he says, " that 
appeal to freedom which is said to characterize 
mental life ... has no weight." The second 
is the entire incompatibility of all inner proc- 
esses — sensations, ideas, etc. — with motion in 
space, figure, position, etc. To that proof he 
assigns only a very slight weight : " It would 
be going too far to assert that the two prin- 
ciples belong to two diff^erent sorts of sub- 
stance." ^ The third reason is the unity of 
consciousness. That, he says, " is the unassail- 
able ground on which the conviction of the 
soul's independence can securely rest." 

But it seems to me that Lotze's estimate of 
the three proofs must be exactly reversed. The 
first and the second proofs are far stronger 
than the third. Nor have I ever been able to 
find any cogency even in his argument for the 
unity of consciousness. And near the close of 
5 Metaphysics, § 241. 



50 THE SOUL'S EXISTENCE 

the chapter he clearly discloses the real basis 
of his belief in the soul. He there says: 
" Lastly, in our present metaphysical discus- 
sion we need not have entered upon these ob- 
jections at all. . . . Everything we supposed 
ourselves to know of matter as an obvious and 
independent existence has long since dissolved 
in the conviction that matter itself ... is 
nothing but an appearance to our percep- 
tions." ^ In fine, his whole argument tapers 
down into the idealistic pseudo-proof: our bod- 
ies are illusions, therefore our souls exist. 

My purpose here has been, not to disparage 
Lotze — a prince among thinkers — but to 
show how thin and weak has been the evidence 
heretofore offered for the soul's existence. But 
from our present vantage-ground I hope to 
reach a higher level of proof. In this chap- 
ter I shall try to recast the argument for the 
unity of consciousness. The other two proofs, 
the crowning and conclusive ones, will be given 
in the two following chapters. 

SECTION III. THE TRUE UNITY OF CON- 
SCIOUSNESS 

Note first of all that unity is the most am- 
biguous of terms. There is a spatial unity, a 
contiguity of atoms that to sense seem as one; 
also a unity of resemblance; and many others. 

6 Op. cit. § 248. 



UNITY OF CONSCIOUSNESS 51 

But as we have seen, these unities are defective 
and deceptive, unless they are subordinated un- 
der the supreme category — the unity of cause 
and effect. And under that category the unity 
of consciousness must be conceived. It is not 
a spatial unity, hke that of a heap of sand. 
Nor a unity of resemblance ; for the elements 
of consciousness are exceedingly diverse. The 
flux of mental phenomena must be conceived 
as myriads of evanescent effects; and yet as 
united by a cause which is aware of them all, 
gives them varying degrees of attention, and 
out of them constructs an organized and last- 
ing experience. 

Through ignoring this distinction, philosophy 
has been unable to prove the unity of conscious- 
ness. Lotze's plea, e.g., is substantially this: 
whatever discerns the likeness or unlikeness of 
things must be a unit.*^ But even plants ap- 
pear to discriminate between different soils and 
foods. And chemical elements seem to know 
their affinities. Why, then, should not a hu- 
man body without a soul be able to do what 
plants and gases can do.^^ 

Others, like Prof. Strong, concede that the 
unity of consciousness has not yet been proved ; 
" all the difficulty is on the score of unity." ^ 
He promises to overcome the difficulty in a 

7 Op. cit. 241. 

8 Why the Mind has a Body, last page. 



52 THE SOUL'S EXISTENCE 

future book. But the vast series of psychic 
phenomena that go flashing through a human 
life can be unified only in the way I have de- 
scribed. 

But it will be objected that even if the unity 
of consciousness can thus be verified and ex- 
plained, that does not prove the existence of 
the soul. The unifying may be the work of 
the brain. In answer thereto I begin by quot- 
ing from a high authority, this : " The in- 
cessant labors of a multitude of workers have 
revealed the fact that not only the spinal cord 
but the whole of the brain is built up on the 
reflex plan. There is even good reason to be- 
lieve, though here we are on less firm ground, 
that all the processes of the brain, even those 
that accompany the most abtruse thought, 
conform to the same fundamental reflex type." ^ 
The main — we will not say the sole — func- 
tion of the brain is to promote reflex action. 
That function is of priceless value. If all the 
intricate activities needful for the maintenance 
of life had to be worked out consciously by the 
mind there would be no time or energy left for 
the noble activities of thought or reason. Man 
would be a mere animal ruled by blind instinct. 

But mark now that this reflex action is a 
movement opposite to that of thought — a 
movement towards blind instinct and the me- 

9McDougall: Body and Mind, p. 107. 



UNITY OF CONSCIOUSNESS 53 

chanical. It is absurd, then, to account for 
the superiority of man over the brutes, as due 
to his having a slightly larger brain. For the 
larger the brain, the greater this automatism, 
this conversion of the conscious into the un- 
conscious — the very negation of thought. 



CHAPTER IV 
CONFLICT OF SENSE AND REASON 

The second proof, incompatibility, it will be 
remembered, Lotze regarded as having but little 
weight. When rightly understood, however, it 
becomes the supreme proof, unanswerable and 
conclusive. 

Modem philosophy has been much perplexed 
by that aspect of contradiction which seems 
everywhere to pervade the universe. Kant as- 
cribed it to some queer twist in all human minds 
which prevented them from seeing things as 
they really are. Hegel ascribed it to some 
strange perversity in the thiugs themselves. 
Neither of these views seems at all satisfactory ; 
and I therefore propound another as follows : 
This universal aspect of contradiction is due 
to the dual nature of man — to the constant 
conflict of the senses and the soul. 

To prove this, let us briefly survey the chief 

categories of human knowledge. It will not 

take long, for these antitheses are so sharp and 

clear as to be evident at a glance when rightly 

presented. And it will be found in each case 
54 



SENSE AND REASON 55 

that the two antithetic terms are not merely 
different from each other. They are polar 
opposites ; they tend in contrary directions. 
Therefore in each case the two antithetic terms 
must be the products of different agencies. 
No one thing can move simultaneously in op- 
posite directions. Hence throughout all hu- 
man experiences, two agencies must be at work ; 
on the one hand, the animal organism producing 
our sensations ; on the other, a soul that thinks 
or reasons. 

SECTION I. LIST OF ANTITHESES 

(1) Reason. Here we have contradiction 
in its widest and clearest type. For it is a 
mere truism to say that Reason discloses hid- 
den facts that are contradicted by the testi- 
mony of the senses. 

(2) Causation. Hume's famous disproof of 
causality rests almost solely upon the fact that 
a causal nexus is imperceptible to the senses. 
To that no answer has ever been made either 
by Kant or his successors. But I have shown 
that to deny causality is to make all thinking 
impossible. In other words, the very essence, 
the supreme purpose of all true thinking, is 
to reveal the unseen. Here, then, we have an- 
other antithesis of sublime import. The ani- 
mal senses show us the visible ; but the thinking 
soul reveals the invisible. 



56 THE SOUL'S EXISTENCE 

(3) Relations. The besetting sin of phi- 
losophers is, notoriously, their habit of hy- 
postasising abstractions. That plainly is an 
outcome of the strife between sense and reason. 
Instinctively thinkers are beguiled into putting 
the spiritual in sensuous forms. A glaring in- 
stance thereof is afforded by Bradley's bril- 
liant book, " Appearance and Reality." The 
corner-stone of that work is its denial of rela- 
tions. " A relational way of thought," we are 
told, " any one that moves by the machinery 
of terms and relations, must give appearance 
and not truth." And his proof, as others be- 
fore me have pointed out, consists in conceiving 
a relation as a thing — an iron bar, as it were, 
which seeks but everlastingly fails to get 
hooked on to its two terms. Surely sense there 
won a silly triumph over reason. 

(4) Conception. Here again a contradic- 
tion emerges over which a wordy warfare has 
been waged for at least two thousand years. 
On the one hand, our senses, like those of other 
animals, disclose only the individual and iso- 
lated; on the other hand. Reason reveals, as I 
have shown,^ those causal processes which make 
the reality of Natural Kinds indubitable. The 
problem can never be adequately solved except 
by recognizing the duality of human nature. 

(5) Analysis and Synthesis. Thinking, the 
1 Chapter I, Section 9, p. 8. 



SENSE AND REASON 57 

Hegelians sa}^ is a combining of two contra- 
dictory functions ; it is at once analytic and 
synthetic ; that is, it at once divides and unites. 
Bosanquet explains this as follows : " In me- 
chanical operations we cannot pull to pieces and 
put together the same thing by the same act." 
But " the essence of thought is to show the 
process in the result and exhibit each as neces- 
sary for the other." 

Now Bosanquet's statement concerning the 
nature of thought is but a vague version of the 
truth formally demonstrated in the first chap- 
ter of this book, to wit, that all thinking is 
essentially a relating of cause and effect. But 
of this truth he offers no proof. With him it 
is a mere assumption manufactured to meet a 
difficulty. 

Furthermore, there is no real contradiction 
between the analytic and the synthetic aspect 
of thought. They seem to be contradictory 
because our bondage to sense leads us to con- 
found the mental operations of analysis and 
synthesis with the sensible operations of di- 
viding and uniting a thing. In short, we have 
here a signal example of the conflict between 
sense and reason. 

(6) Similarity . No concept is so often used 
even among philosophers as that of similarity 
or likeness. And no other is so fruitful in mis- 
understandings and paradoxes. On its very 



58 THE SOUL'S EXISTENCE 

face it bears the stamp of the self-contradictory. 
For there are no two things that are not at 
once like and unlike each other. 

It is significant that Bergson, who has gained 
celebrity through his attempt to disparage in- 
tellect as inferior to instinct or feeling, bases 
his contention upon this elusive, self-contradic- 
tory relation of mere resemblance. He asserts 
repeatedly that " the natural function of the 
intellect is to bind like to unlike." He even 
maintained that " there is a vague and in some 
sort objective resemblance spread over the sur- 
face of the images themselves," and that " this 
similarity acts objectively like a force." That 
seems the climax of nonsense. 

Bergson does not see that it is sense or in- 
stinct — not intellect — that is guided solely 
by the likeness or unlikeness of things. 
Thought, as the whole history of science teaches, 
liberates from that bondage. It transmutes, as 
I have shown (Chapter I, Section 2) the vague 
misleading relations of similarity into causal 
relations. 

(7) Space. Here little need be added to 
what I have already said concerning perceptual 
and conceptual space.^ The former, which 
gives us the spatial relations between sensible 
things — distances, directions, etc. — is the 
pure product of sensation; animals recognise 
2 Chapter I, Section 5. 



SENSE AND REASON 59 

them as clearly as man does, often more so. 
But man, endowed with reason, recognises also 
conceptual space — that is, a space which is 
not, as spatial relations are, many, finite^ di- 
visible, but on the contrary, absolutely one, 
in^nite and indivisible. Unmistakably we have 
here an enormous contrast — contradiction mul- 
tiplied three-fold. And yet these more than po- 
lar opposites constantly present themselves in 
all human experience. Can their co-existence 
be explained except as the products of two 
diametrically different agencies, animal sense 
and the thinking soul? 

(8) Time. The same argument evidently 
applies to the contrariety shown in our first 
chapter between temporal relations or periods 
— such as hours, days, years, etc. — and time 
as a whole. The temporal periods are many, 
finite, and divisible. But time itself is one, in- 
finite and indivisible. Here, then, is another 
point-blank contradiction between what sense 
perceives and reason discovers. 

(9) Time and Space. But common to both 
of these there is another contradiction which 
has wrought more perplexity, dispute, and 
chaotic confusion in modern philosophy than 
all other causes combined. On the one hand, 
both Space and Time when contemplated by 
sense seem to be absolutely nothing: space 
possesses no sensible mark or attribute by which 



60 THE SOUL'S EXISTENCE 

it can be distinguished from pure nothing; and 
as for time, the present is a mere boundary hne 
— without width — between the non-existent 
past and the non-existent future. It was this 
apparent nothingness that made it so easy for 
Kant to convince his disciples that space and 
time were mere fictions of the mind. But on 
the other hand, Reason teaches (as shown in 
Chapter I) that these two nothings are real 
causes upon which everything else in the uni- 
verse depends for its existence. Abolish space 
and time, and you blot out the universe. For 
what exists nowhere and never, does not exist 
at all. 

(10) Numbers. The arithmetical unit is the 
most difficult conception which primitive thought 
has to grasp, because it is the most antithetic 
to what the senses teach. For the units are 
absolutely alike and unchangeable; but sensi- 
ble things are never quite alike and forever 
changing. And it is not the untutored savage 
alone that is embarrassed by this contrariety of 
reason and sense. Even the Greeks — princes 
in philosophy, poetry and the fine arts — seem 
to have been unable to clearly distinguish be- 
tween numbers and things numbered.^ So im- 
perfect was their system of notation that they 
had to work all difficult problems geometrically.^ 

3 Wallace: Prolegomena Hegel's Logic. 
4 Ritchie: Plato, ip, 49. 



SENSE AND REASON 61 

Something of this conflict lingers subtly in 
modern philosophy. Thus Mill argues that all 
numbers must be numbers of something; ab- 
stract numbers do not exist.^ On the contrary, 
James is confident that " all arithmetical propo- 
sitions deal with abstract and ideal numbers 
exclusively." ^ 

(11) Physical Science. We have thus exam- 
ined the ten chief categories with which science 
deals. But it may be well to add a quotation 
from James concerning the sciences in general. 
" They are all translations of sensible experi- 
ence into other forms . . . coupled with decla- 
rations that the experienced form is false and 
the ideal form true. . . . And the miracle of 
miracles, a miracle not yet exhaustively treated 
by any philosophy, is that the given order lends 
itself to the remodelling." There is no " mir- 
acle," however, but simply the natural yielding 
of the " night-view " given by sense to " the 
daylight view " given by reason. 

SECTION II. ART 

What has just been said concerning science 
applies also to art. Indeed, art was the soul's 
first revolt against the bondage of sense --- an 
effort to free itself, to rise to something higher 
than animal life and feeling. History shows 

5 Logic, Bk. II, Chap. II, Sec. 2. 
^Psychology, II, p. 655. 



62 THE SOUL'S EXISTENCE 

this priority of art to anything hke scientific 
thought. The brutish dwellers in the Dor- 
dogne caves had somehow acquired the artistic 
gift; their modellings of mammoths, deer, etc., 
show a surprising excellence. It seems well au- 
thenticated also that in the genesis of language, 
poetry long preceded prose. 

Unfortunately, I must here confine myself to 
brief mention of two or three phases of art. 
And first of all to that pre-eminent mark of 
the aesthetic spirit, The Love of Nature. 
Therein the conflict between sense and reason 
which pervades all human experience is most 
vividly displayed. Sense is chiefly impressed 
by the disagreeable aspects of Nature — 
storms, earthquakes and other perils. Even so 
artistic a race as the Greeks seem to have been 
devoid of any genuine love of Nature. " So 
far as I can recollect," says Ruskin, " every 
Homeric landscape intended to be beautiful is 
composed of a fountain, a meadow and a shady 
grove." The poet Schiller also declares that 
the Greeks " took no interest or heart in the 
details of Nature." With the Romans it was 
still worse. Even the glories of Alpine scenery 
suggested to them no associations but those of 
horror and desolation. " The few attempts at 
landscape painting among the Greeks and Ro- 
mans," says Brunn, " never rose above a bird's- 



SENSE AND REASON 63 

eye view or an insipid scenographj." '^ But 
later on, when Europe had been taught that 
one Infinite and self-sacrificing Cause mani- 
fested Himself even in the lowliest things on 
earth, then the Love of Nature burst forth like 
the rising of the sun. Animal- and plant-life 
became centers of poetic interest. " The Ro- 
mance of the Rose," for example, was trans- 
lated into many languages and everywhere re- 
ceived with extravagant delight.^ And not 
only in these grand, epical forms, but in the 
simple, homely songs of the common people, 
the same deep, mystical passion for Nature is 
displayed. 

Gothic Architecture is another triumph of 
reason over sense, of the spirit over the flesh. 
Greek architecture was limited to the outer 
form: " the exterior is of a simple but majestic 
beauty ; the interior is contracted and paltry." ^ 
But in the medieval cathedral the exterior, al- 
though grand, is but the casket holding the 
treasures within. The lofty aisles, the vaults 
interwoven like a forest, the host of attenuated 
columns, the dim vistas, the solemn shadows 
intermingling with radiant color, the circular 
window with its brilliant petals figuring the 

TBrunn: Gesch. d. Grieckischen Kiinstler, II, p. 308. 

8 Roquefort: La Poesie Francaise, p. 170. 

9 Schnaase : Gesch. d. Bild. Kunst., IV, p. 193. 



64 THE SOUL'S EXISTENCE 

rose of eternity, the maze of details fashioned 
from the flowers by the wayside — all unite to 
form one vast symbol of God and Nature. It 
is the victory of the inner over the outer, of 
spirit over sense. 

Music, too, tells the same story. Sense gives 
us but a medley of noises ; and the first efforts 
to unify this chaos created the monotonous 
music known to savages. Even of the Greeks 
it is said that " it remains to be proved that 
their vocal melody consisted of anything more 
strictly musical than intoning." ^^ But musi- 
cal harmony is the gift of the Middle Ages to 
the world's art. It was first discovered in the 
times of Gregory the Great. But in the age 
of the crusades " the art of descant was invented 
and the evolution of modern music was fairly 
under way." ^^ From noise and monotony to 
modern music is surely a great triumph of soul 
over sense. 

SECTION III. MORALITY 

The contrariety between the sensuous and the 
ethical is so obvious that it needs but to be 
mentioned. Long ago it crystallized in that 
famous line of the poet, " Video meliora pro- 
hoque; deteriora sequor.'* Morality implies a 

10 Hullah: History of Modern Music, p. 92. 

11 Op. cit. p. T7. 



SENSE AND REASON 65 

conscious refusal to do what we feel a strong 
desire to do — a conscious inhibition of im- 
pulses working steadily and mightily within 
us. 

But it may be objected that this conflict of 
impulses does not necessarily involve a dual 
agency. A man may have a strong desire to 
slay another, but be deterred therefrom by fear 
of the consequences. That is true but irrele- 
vant. For in such a divided consciousness there 
is no ethical element. He who refrains from 
murder solely through fear of being hanged is 
at heart a murderer. 

The essence of morality, then, is self-denial. 
"All have sinned." The best of men have to 
wage perpetual war against evil desires and 
tendencies. And this strife cannot be accounted 
for by anything in the merely animal nature 
of man. As a competent authority has said: 
" The analogies between the habits of animals 
and the customs of the most backward natives 
of Australia prove so faint as to cast no light 
at all on any of the special developments within 
the moral nature of the latter." ^^ 

And nothing but frank recognition of man's 
dual nature will throw any real light upon the 
dark theme of human conduct. On the one side 
is the animal nature which, left to itself, en- 

i2Marett: Personal Idealism, p. 248. 



66 THE SOUL'S EXISTENCE 

genders only brutishness. On the other is the 
human spirit able to know the right and to bat- 
tle against the wrong. 

We have made a wide survey of psychic ac- 
tivities, and everywhere we have found a realm 
of self-contradiction. Fortunately, too, our 
finding seems to be supported by the general 
drift of modern philosophy. Kant rested all 
upon his famous antinomies. Hegel even pro- 
claimed that " contradiction was the moving 
spirit of the world." Quite recently an eminent 
French philosopher has scornfully dismissed 
the intellect as " characterized by a natural in- 
ability to comprehend life." ^^ And HoiFding 
ends his latest work thus : " In all our prob- 
lems we end with an interminable conflict. . . . 
We cannot solve definitely these problems." ^^ 

But while agreeing with all these grand mas- 
ters as to the fact of universal contradiction, 
my interpretation of the fact is the exact re- 
verse of theirs. First, it involves no paradoxes. 
Unlike Kant's interpretation, it does not regard 
the human intellect as an evil machine producing 
only illusions and lies. Unlike Hegel's, it does 
not regard things as perversely bent upon con- 
tradicting each other. 

Secondly, my interpretation is not mere 

13 Bergson: Creative Evolution, p. 165. 
^4: Problems of Philosophy. 



SENSE AND REASON 67 

guess-work, but rigidly verified. In all realms 
of human experience we have found a constant 
tendency to simultaneous movements in exactly 
opposite directions. Therefore, in human ex- 
perience there must be two diverse agencies at 
work — animal sensation and a rational soul. 
That is as certain as that the same object can- 
not at the same instant move both up and down. 
When that simple truth works its way into 
the speculative mind, souls will come in fashion 
again. 



CHAPTER V 
FREEDOM 

The controversy concerning " free will " has 
assumed such immense proportions without 
reaching any satisfactory conclusion, that it 
may seem absurd to attempt a settlement of the 
question in one short chapter. Nevertheless, 
from our present vantage-ground I venture 
upon the task. If perchance I succeed, we shall 
have a third and final proof of the soul's exist- 
ence. 

My attempt divides into two tasks. The 
first will seek to negative the determinist's argu- 
ment; the second, to give a full, positive proof 
of freedom. 

SECTION I. THE INCONCEIVABILITY OF 
FREEDOM 

The stronghold of determinism is the conten- 
tion that freedom is unthinkable. No "satisfac- 
tory answer has ever been made to that conten- 
tion. Nay, more than that, the greatest minds 
among libertarians have openly conceded this 

inconceivability. Kant said : " Freedom is 
68 



FREEDOM 69 

only an idea of reason and therefore its objec- 
tive reality is doubtful ... we cannot com- 
prehend the practical unconditioned necessity 
of the moral imperative." So Fichte said: 
" We make this resolve not from any theoretic 
insight, but in consequence of a practical in- 
terest. I will be independent, hence I resolve 
to consider myself independent." Also Sir Wil- 
liam Hamilton : " How the will can possibly 
be free must remain to us, under the present 
limitation of our faculties, wholly incomprehen- 
sible." 

Not all libertarians have been thus frank. 
But all have virtually succumbed to this de- 
terministic attack: some by ignoring it; some 
by futile replies. 

Let me quote here from an author who has 
recently put forth a large volume in defense of 
freedom. But in the middle of it he surrenders 
thus : " Why does the free self choose one 
line of action rather than another? The only 
choice left us here appears to be between an 
antinomy and an infinite regress, which is a 
veritable Scylla and Charybdis. If the self be 
ever so free to choose, choice without a reason 
— or cause or preference — for that choice is 
unthinkable. If the reason be sufficient it is 
determining. So we come to the antinomy of 
a free yet determined choice which seems self- 
contradiction. If it be suggested that self ex- 



70 THE SOUL'S EXISTENCE 

ercises control over the reason which controls 
the choice, then there must be a reason for such 
control, and so on ad infinitum.^^ ^ 

Thus completely at a loss, our author makes 
the usual flimsy appeal to consciousness, and 
finally says : " The reality of freedom lies 
deeper than argument." Now plainly that is 
a complete surrender: if it is true, the other 
four hundred pages of the book are but so much 
waste paper. The same may be said of the 
other writers mentioned; and a host of others 
unmentioned. Why write countless books and 
waste time in endless argumentation in the vain 
endeavor to prove the reality of something ab- 
solutely incomprehensible? 

But from our present point of view, it is easy 
to see the error underlying all these surrenders 
to determinism. A free cause, instead of being 
unthinkable, is the only thoroughly comprehen- 
sible cause. It is the only true or complete 
type of causation. From that type all imper- 
fect or partial causes are deviations due to 
their defects and obscurities. To quote again 
wise old Aristotle's maxim : " By the concept 
of the straight we discover both the straight 
and the crooked." 

But the determinist exactly reverses this 
golden rule. He would mutilate the most per- 
fect form of finite causality — the human — in 

1 Ballard: False and True Determinism, p. 240. 



FREEDOM 71 

order to make it like the lowest, most defective 
form, to wit, the causality of inert, irrational 
things. Such causes seem hardly worthy of 
the name, to be rather mere effects, each mys- 
teriously linked to its antecedent and so on into 
the midnight of the infinite past. 

And yet this transparent fallacy, this degrad- 
ing of causality to its emptiest form, is the tap- 
root of determinism. Thus Hume said : " Ac- 
cording to the doctrine of liberty or chance, 
this (causal) connection is reduced to nothing. 
... As the action proceeds from nothing in 
him that is durable and constant and leaves 
nothing of that nature behind it . . . therefore 
a man is as pure and untainted after having 
committed the most horrid crimes as at the first 
moment of his birth." That is to say, a free 
or perfect cause is unthinkable. If an act has 
not been compelled by some previous act or 
event, it has been done by chance — that is, by 
nothing. And this nonsense is still being re- 
hearsed by the most eminent determinists, e.g., 
McTaggart, Bain, Fullerton, Hobhouse, Rash- 
dall, etc., as their chief disproof of freedom. 

SECTION II. REASON AND CAUSE 

The determinist is led still further astray 
by that vagueness of popular speech which con- 
founds reason and cause. But between these 
two there is this deep and wide distinction — 



72 THE SOUL'S EXISTENCE 

reason compels belief, hut not action. One may 
have the best of reasons for doing an act and 
yet fail to do it. Only when the will or spirit 
issues its fiat does the action ensue. 

But the determinist curiously transfers this 
compulsion from the belief to the act. He ar- 
gues, reason compels one to believe that he 
ought to do a certain act, therefore it compels 
him to do it. But that on its very face seems 
absurd. And yet even eminent libertarians 
succumb to it. Thus Sir William Hamilton 
says : " A determination by motives cannot to 
our understanding escape from necessitation." 
And Dr. Ballard, in the passage already quoted, 
insists that in choosing there must be some rea- 
son that compels one to choose this rather than 
that. In the same way many others virtually 
give up the fight for freedom. 

Coupled with this there is another ambiguity 
equally disastrous. There are two kinds of 
choice radically different from each other, the 
one mechanical, the other ethical. The former 
— pleasure accepted, pain avoided — is purely 
automatic, almost unconscious. The latter is 
the rejection of the pleasant. at the command 
of duty ; it is self-denial, the choice of the 
straight gate and the narrow way. This abso- 
lute contrariety between the two choices has 
often been noted. Thus Wundt, e.g., says : 
" Let m be a motive for and n a motive against 



FREEDOM 73 

some volition; the result will be not m-n but 
may be a double or treble m or n." Or as Prof. 
Poynting states it : "A body does not yield 
to the strongest force. It moves in the direc- 
tion of the resultant of all the forces. But the 
will finally takes one course and the motives 
prompting to other courses all drop out of 
action." ^ 

Determinism, then, rests upon a threefold 
fallacy, {a) It assumes that a free or perfect 
cause is inconceivable ; on the contrary, it is 
the only cause which is fully and clearly con- 
ceivable; all imperfect or partial causes depend 
upon it for their explanation. (6) It assumes 
that having a reason for an action makes that 
action compulsory; which is absurdly untrue, 
(c) It confounds mechanical with ethical choice. 
Extirpate these three fallacies and the whole 
fabric of determinism instantly collapses. 

SECTION III. THE POSITIVE PROOF OF 
FREEDOM 

But more is needed than a mere refuting of 
the determinist argument. Positive proof is 
demanded; all the more because the gift of 
freedom is unique and unparalleled in the 
world's phenomena. 

Up to the present time no such proof has 
been proffered. Instead, there has been only 

2 Hibbert Journal, 1909, p. 743. 



74 THE SOUL'S EXISTENCE 

much loud assertion that we are conscious of 
our freedom. But mere assertion proves noth- 
ing. It is open, too, to Spinoza's sarcasm that 
man thinks himself free because he does not 
know the causes that compel him. 

But we have now reached a point where a 
solid proof can be obtained, resting upon veri- 
fied facts and not upon mere assertions. For 
in Chapter II, it was shown that the four main 
constituents of a perfect or self-sufficient cause 
were infinitude, unity, rationality and self-limi- 
tation for the sake of others. Now, man is 
manifestly possessed of the three last named 
characteristics. (1) He is a unit, both as an 
animal organism, and — as was shown in Chap- 
ter III — as a thinking, conscious being. (2) 
He is certainly rational; although woefully 
prone to lapse into irrationality. (S) He has 
the power, which he exercises more or less, of 
limiting or denying himself for the sake of 
others. 

But, of course, he is not infinite. And so 
the crucial question is this: Does the lack of 
infinitude debar him from being, not an abso- 
lutely, but a relatively perfect or free cause .^^ 
To that question there can be but one sensible 
answer. Man's finiteness does not necessarily 
debar him from a finite or limited freedom. 
And mark now that this is the only kind of 
freedom which he possesses. On every side he 



FREEDOM 75 

is hemmed in by laws and restrictions which he 
can no more defy or evade than he can arrest 
the revolution of the earth on its axis. But 
in the limited sphere of morals, man is free. 
He cannot be compelled to act wrongfully. 
For an act that is compelled cannot be morally 
wrong. Its compulsoriness obliterates its eth- 
ical quality. 

Man, then, has all but one of the four essen- 
tial characteristics of a perfect or free cause. 
But the lack of that one — infinitude — is no 
bar to a finite freedom. Much corroborating 
evidence might be given if space permitted. 
But this alone is full, positive proof of human 
freedom. 

And this assurance of freedom is the final 
guarantee of the soul's existence. For it shat- 
ters that ancient error — three thousand years 
old in India, and revived in the Hegelian or 
culminating phase of modern idealism — which 
denies the individuality of the soul and pictures 
it as the flitting shadow of an infinite energy. 
Thus Hegel affirms that " the mind as finite has 
no existence." Or as Haldane says : " Both 
the external world of things and the spiritual 
world of persons have their existence, somehow 
or other, in only one Supreme Existence." ^ 
But we have escaped from this wild Hindu 
3 Mechanism, Life and Personality, p. 74. 



76 THE SOUL'S EXISTENCE 

illusionism bj reversing the method of research. 
We began by studying causality in its most per- 
fect type — not in its most imperfect and there- 
fore least knowable forms. Thus we were en- 
abled to demonstrate the existence of God. 
Passing thence to human causality we found in 
it a threefold proof of the soul's existence: 
(1) as an agent unifying the flux of thought 
and feeling; (2) as an activity in polar con- 
trast with that of mere body; (3) as a free 
cause, finite indeed, but still closely akin to the 
divine. 

Thus philosophy is saved from sinking back 
into the old Hindu illusionism. And it can 
safely leave the problem of the nature of ma- 
terial things to be solved by experimental sci- 
ence. 



CHAPTER VI 

IMMORTALITY 

SECTION I. PRELIMINARY CONSIDERATIONS 

If anything exists, then souls exist. Of that 
fact we have now gained ample evidence. But 
it has been maintained even by devout believers 
in the soul's reality — Pfleiderer, for example 
— that this proves only the bare possibility of 
its continuance after the death of the body. 
It gives hope, but no firm assurance. But I 
now seek to show that we can go farther than 
this ; that from our present vantage-ground 
we can logically reach as firm an assurance of 
the life beyond as we have of most things on 
this side of the grave. 

Consider first the polar contrast between body 
and mind. Long ago Occasionalism raised a 
problem which after three centuries of dispute 
still remains unsolved: How can entities so 
utterly disparate interact with each other .f' It 
is a stumbling-block against which the rival 
philosophies have fallen helpless. 

But mark now this indubitable and most sig- 
nificant fact. All this dark, inexplicable mys- 
77 



78 THE SOUL'S EXISTENCE 

tery in the relationship of matter and mind, or 
body and soul, corwerns only their unity and 
not their separation. More than that, this 
mystery of the union illumines the nature and 
the certainty of that separation which takes 
place when the body " returns to the dust and 
the spirit to the God that gave it." Death is 
the dissolution of the millions of cells aggre- 
gated in the body ; but the soul being a perfect 
unit and a unifying agent is indissoluble, death- 
less. The present life, then^ is the real mys- 
tery; it is the dark wilderness through which 
man gains the promised land of immortality. 

(2) Consider also the mind's supremacy 
over the body. It governs the body's move- 
ments, checks its evil appetites, subdues its pas- 
sions, guards it against dangers. There seems, 
indeed, to be hardly any limit to this majestic 
power of the spirit. Unlike other energies, the 
more it does, the stronger and more triumphant 
it becomes. It can convert even the flames of 
martyrdom into " a bed of roses." 

But the denial of immortality involves the 
preposterous paradox that when the body is 
aged and infirm, ready to dissolve into dust, 
then the spirit loses its mastery. It succumbs 
when the body is at its wealiest. The victor 
surrenders to a vanquished and retreating foe. 
It, too, dissolves — not merely into dust, but 
into nothingness. Surely that is nonsense. 



IMMORTALITY 79 

The considerations presented above seem to 
me to have great weight. But there is another 
line of evidence which gives a still deeper and 
fuller assurance of immortality. It is based 
upon the principle which it was Hegel's chief 
merit to have emphasised, namely, that " the 
Whole is the Truth." In other words, the 
various branches of knowledge are not isolated 
fragments, but are so interconnected as to form 
one organic system. Hence there can be no 
surer test of any supposed knowledge than that 
it thoroughly conforms with all other spheres 
of knowledge. 

Such a proof of immortality I now seek to 
outline. To this end let us roughly divide 
knowledge into three spheres — religion, moral- 
ity and physical science. 

Religion. That the belief in immortality is 
an essential element in all religion, no one will 
seriously deny. Even the Buddhist believes in 
a future life ; although his atheism has made 
that life seem so hideous that he wildly strives 
to escape from it into " Nirvana." And a few 
European thinkers have so far followed in 
Buddha's footsteps as to affirm immortality 
without accepting God's existence. But these 
are abnormal exceptions. Normally the devel- 
opment of the one belief goes hand in hand with 
that of the other. As Rashdall says : ^ " Jew- 
1 Theory of Good and Evil, II, p. 218. 



80 THE SOUL'S EXISTENCE 

ish theology only reached the level of pure 
Monotheism a very little before a developed be- 
lief in Immortality (as distinct from a mere 
survival, which could hardly be called life, in 
a shadowy Sheol) began to appear." Still 
more clearly does this law hold in Christian 
history. As the belief in God advances or re- 
cedes, so does the conception of a future life. 
The perfect correlation of the two beliefs, then, 
is obvious. All history teaches it. 

Morality. Some moralists protest against 
linking ethics with the doctrine of immortality. 
Like Spinoza, they insist that virtue is its own 
reward, and vice its own punishment. Or like 
Hume, they urge that the absence of compen- 
sating justice in this world is a very poor proof 
of its presence in another and unknown world. ^ 
But they all take too narrow a view of the 
future life as merely a place of rewards and 
punishments. Kant's insight was much deeper 
and truer. He saw, as in a vision, the primary 
and profounder meaning of the future life. It 
was something more than a penitentiary for 
some and a palace for others. Immortality 
was the guarantee of a nobler development for 
man than could be obtained under earthly con- 
ditions. Or as he put it, " The highest good is 
practically possible only on the presupposition 
of the immortality of the soul." 

spfleiderer: Philosophy of Religion, IV, p. 168. 



IMMORTALITY 81 

There is, however, one serious flaw in Kant's 
argument. His illusionism led him to an agnos- 
tic theory of God and the soul. Thus he un- 
consciously tore down the foundation of his 
argument for immortality. That foundation 
we have now restored. The existence of God 
and the soul have both been proved. Kant's 
argument is thus finally perfected. The belief 
in Morality and the belief in Immortality have 
been shown to be so closely interrelated that 
neither can be destroyed without destroying the 
other. 

Science. The conflict of religion and science 
was at first inevitable. For they were opposite 
tendencies ; the one was engrossed with the in- 
visible, the other with the visible. But now a 
harmony, like that of music, begins to mani- 
fest itself between them. 

(1) Consider the supreme principle of mod- 
ern science — the doctrine of evolution. At 
first religion protested fiercely against the new 
doctrine as atheism. To-day it generally ac- 
cepts Fiske's saying : " The more thoroughly 
we comprehend the process of evolution, the 
more we are apt to feel that to deny the ever- 
lasting persistence of the spiritual element in 
man is to rob the whole process of its mean- 
ing." 3 

(2) The second grand triumph of modern 
3 Destiny of Man, p. 116. 



82 THE SOUL'S EXISTENCE 

science was the discovery of the Conservation 
of Energy. Science, at first engrossed with the 
visible, has become a revelation of the invisible. 
For the various forms of energy which it has 
brought to light are not perceptible to the 
senses. They are inferred from the effects they 
produce. And the law of conserv^ation is but 
a more exact statement of what religion pro- 
claimed long ago. " The things which are seen 
are temporal; but the things which are not 
seen are eternal." 

(S) There is a third feature of the scientific 
movement which tells much for my purpose. 
Lotze concludes his Logic with a fervid hope 
that Science would not always be content to 
merely predict but would seek to comprehend. 
But despite its wonderful progress since then, 
science shows no sign of such a change. On 
the contrary, it insists more firmly than ever 
that its mission is to predict, not to explain. 
And to this norm our knowledge of immortality 
conforms. It is not a mere possibility ; it is 
predictable with full assurance. But its de- 
tails cannot be comprehended ; " neither have 
entered into the heart of man the things which 
God hath prepared for them that love him." 

(4) It is too early to judge concerning the 
efforts to prove immortality by " psychical re- 
search." A score of centuries intervened be- 
tween the crude glimpses of evolution gained by 



IMMORTALITY 83 

Aristotle and St. Augustine and the final tri- 
umph of Darwin. A host of discoveries had to 
be made before the gap between surmise and 
certainty could be closed. But science moves 
far more swiftly now than then. And I believe 
that at no very distant day it will show us 
that the dead are still alive. 

At any rate, we have now seen that science 
and the belief in immortality are in full accord. 
Both are built upon the same triple basis. (1) 
The law of the conservation of energy is the 
same as the idea of immortality ; only it is ex- 
pressed in terms of physical science. (2) Evo- 
lution — aye ! even natural selection — reveals 
the real trend of life beyond the grave. (3) 
Science, as predictive, but unable to fully com- 
prehend, precisely mirrors our knowledge of 
the world to come. 

The belief in immortality, then, is in full ac- 
cord with the three most fundamental principles 
of modem science. With religion and morality 
it not only accords, but is indispensable to their 
very existence. Thus all spheres of human 
knowledge in unison proclaim the immortality 
of the soul. Whoever denies or doubts that 
immortality arrays himself against the entire 
organized system of human knowledge — fights 
against that Whole which is the Truth. 

Nothing has so much hindered human prog- 
ress and welfare as man's pugnacity and nar- 



84 THE SOUL'S EXISTENCE 

row-mindedness. The theologian, the moralist 
and the scientist all look askance at each other, 
ever ready for a dispute. But there is no more 
need of a quarrel between these three forms 
of knowledge than between three branches of 
one tree. They all spring from a common 
root, the thought of causality. And they all 
point to a common sky — the many-colored 
dome of immortality. 



CHAPTER VII 
CONCLUSION 

Doubt is expanding. Formerly it was con- 
fined to religion and morals. To-day it 
spreads its black shadows over all science — 
even over geometry. For example, take that 
monumental work, " The Foundations of Sci- 
ence." Its author, Poincare, one of the great- 
est mathematicians of all time, there contends 
with wonderful skill and power that the first 
principles of science have no logical basis, can- 
not be verified. They are mere conventions 
framed and accepted by scientists, because they 
are " convenient," because " without them sci- 
ence would be impossible" (p. 173). So far 
no one has really answered him. 

And there is no possible answer, I think, 
except one derived from the fundamental prin- 
ciple proved in our first chapter. Consider, 
e. g. his chief paradox, one upon which he lav- 
ishes a hundred pages, one that is the tap-root 
of all the rest — the denial of space. The gist 
of it he gives in these italicised words : " // 
there were no solid bodies, there would he no 
geoTnetry " (p. 73). 

85 



86 THE SOUL'S EXISTENCE 

Now our fundamental principle was that to 
know any reality aright, we must think it in 
terms of cause and effect. Thereby we proved 
the reality of space. Poincare saw one-half 
of this truth ; that space could be known only 
through its effects — the spatial relations of 
solid bodies. But he did not see the other half; 
that we could not know these spatial relations 
if we had no knowledge of that one, infinite 
space upon which they depend. 

We conclude, then, that one and the same 
principle — that of causality — guarantees our 
knowledge of both the spiritual and the physical. 
We have no more reason, then, for doubting the 
existence of souls than for doubting the truths 
of geometry. 



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